Good News: We bring it, we make it.
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We unfurl the truth: We are determined patriots.
The Good Gnus group is a community of readers, writers, activists, supporters, community builders, and patriots. We begin gathering every day at 7 a.m. ET to celebrate national good news. Our most active members are of course a subgroup of members of Daily Kos, whose Front Pages celebrate “News, Community, Action.” However, you don’t have to be a member of Daily Kos to be a Gnusie.
We are realists, not fools, idiots, or ostriches. We know we live in a world where active, nefarious, and evil decision-makers do very bad things, slow testing, withhold medical supplies, and create stress and anxiety in us, our loved ones, our friends, our neighbors, our allies, and destroy people and systems we hold dear. However, we choose to focus on the good news that people create around the country, and we pledge to Never. Forget. Election Day is less than four months away. Sometimes we create Good News. Together we are strong and resilient. We return regularly to these pages to revitalize.
In a Good News Roundup, the weight of bearing good news is not borne by the author alone: Gnusies can be counted on to adorn the comment section with good news. Often commenters create three times as many comments as Recommendations! If you cannot linger with us for hours, I recommend you return in the mid or late afternoon, learn who your favorite commenters are, and Search for them on return visits. We count on certain favorite Gnusies to bless us in the comments with humor and hope every day.
Politics
NBA players get ownership to agree to turn arenas into safe voting sites — Walter Einenkel, Daily Kos:
On Wednesday, the NBA shut down in the middle of the playoffs, after the players decided that they would begin a strike. The work stoppage was to show their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and acknowledge the horrendous injustice brought upon Black people, like Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. However, this was not simply a couple of days of shutting down the NBA season. Reports filtered out that during a meeting the game’s biggest star, LeBron James, walked out ready to end the season entirely if something more than a single day’s work stoppage was going to be the only consequence of the players’ protest.
On Friday, the NBA and the players announced that they would resume the season on Saturday, but a “social justice coalition, with representatives from players, coaches and governors, that will be focused on a broad range of issues, including increasing access to voting, promoting civic engagement, and advocating for meaningful police and criminal justice reform,” would be “immediately” established. But that was not all.
Professional athletes stage a historic wildcat strike, this week in the war on workers - Laura Clawson
In the tradition of unions organizing for the broader public interest—as when teachers in Chicago and other cities negotiate for services that benefit their students outside of school as well as in class, for instance, or when unions pour money into raising the minimum wage for all workers—the players of the NBA and the MLB and the WNBA and other leagues made advances for everyone. Turning arenas into polling places could help with voting lines in key cities around the country. And the players—the workers—highlighted a major injustice in this country peacefully though not without disruption, again challenging the “I’m in favor of peaceful protest, just not riots, except oh, by the way, I was really really mad at Colin Kaepernick” crowd. As Hamilton Nolan writes, the athletes also reminded workers that they, too, have leverage.
Hope is a dying ember for black people in the US. Athletes have rekindled it — The Guardian
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: When I boycotted the 1968 Olympics because of racial inequality I was ostracized. Now white athletes are joining their black teammates in protests.
But then along came the Milwaukee Bucks, my old team, who announced they would boycott Game 5 of the NBA playoffs, explaining, “Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.” They demanded that the Wisconsin state legislature, after months of inaction, “take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform.” And just like that, the ember of hope was flickering to life again.
Other NBA and WNBA teams followed. Games were postponed. That both leagues spoke out immediately was courageous, especially given the hundreds of millions of dollars involved and all the expense and effort it took to create their sports bubbles. But it wasn’t that great of surprise because 81.1% of the NBA and 88% of the WNBA are black and their families and friends don’t live in a protective bubble.
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